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Sunday, June 2, 2013

Regrets

I had someone pose this question-"Do any of the children that are adopted that are older ever have regret being here/ want to be back in China ?" So once I explained what "regret" was to my children and asked them, these were the answers ----Chance does not have regret about being adopted or coming here. He misses foods, snacks from China. Sometimes he does things he should not do and gets in trouble and would like to be able to do anything he wants and not have a parent that corrects him. (wouldn't all kids?) He does not want to go back to China to live EVER. He told me before that he did things in China, bad things. Stealing food, hurting people, etc. And we've talked about this. I have made it clear to Chance that the things he did in China he did to survive. That he doesn't do them here, because he knows it's wrong and God can and will forgive him for anything he did in China. Nor do WE love him less for anything he did in China. Good things Chance likes -- being loved, having fun, friends, playing outside more, going to big parks (Hershey Park), getting gifts, getting money, that he can get jobs, that he can grow up and get a job to support himself and a family. (He worries that he won't be able to get a good job and have a good life as an adult.)Chloe-- Her only real regret-- she wished she could have come here earlier. (Ahhh. Break my momma heart right here-- she has always said this-- and I tell her I totally wish I had birthed her) She doesn't like that she can't do things that other 16 year old girls can do here, such as drive yet. (Not ready per her parents) She misses the foods, her friend who aged out without being adopted:(She gets upset that their real birthday and even "for sure" ages, remain an unknown- at best they are guessed to be their ages:( This annoys her even when I tell her I am pretty sure we are close to right on with her age. At times she likes to tell me she thinks she is 20 and I tease her and tell her I think she is 12. She then happily goes back to being 16.Per Chloe-- if she goes back to China it will be to "Go on Heritage tour, help orphans / old people or adopt kids." Not to live there forever.Chase--Misses the food, friends, freedom to do whatever and have no one to care what they did. Does not regret being adopted though:) Does not want to go back to China to live, wants to "get job, live here."Phoebe- Misses her grandma (foster mom), doesn't like that she had to leave her. She is not sad to have to come here to get a mom and dad, she "LOVE- ahhh US!!! " (she's so funny and sooo full of love and life) She worries about her "Di Di"-- a little brother, an orphan who is 5 who has some type of medical problem and lives with grandma, although she was thrilled when I told her HE TOO could get a mom and a dad. She was soooo excited and said he "Really, really needs momma and baba." Kat-- (Had to be included even though she was adopted at age 3) No regrets, very happy to have us "come get her." Misses her Po Po and Gong Gong ( her foster parents we are in touch with-she calls them grandma and grandpa.) Then she wanted to know how come people leave their children in China and we talked about birth moms and the One Child law and how people have to abandon children anonymously so they don't go to jail but this also makes it almost impossible to find birth parents.

She was happy to know her birth mom did not go to jail and wanted to know if I thought her birth mom was in Mexico? I assured her there was little to NO chance she was in Mexico. (Don't ask me what the fascination with Mexico is here today?)Both Kat and Phoebe have said before they never want to go back to China to live. No way. Too far from mom and dad:)Paisley was in no mood to ask. She got in trouble today and I was sure she would say she hates all of us and regrets being adopted for sure. Because she was rude first to Chase. Then she told Kat "Don't touch me" when Kat came up behind her and hugged her very briefly (she's a prickly thing and not happy to be loved on) which I asked her this-- has your friend at school (K) ever hugged you? Yep, she said. And I said "Did you tell her not to touch you?" Her answer "No." So I made her apologize to Kat and hug her and she got very angry because as we have explained before, we DO NOT treat friends better than family. Friends may come and go, family is forever and she said it "Wasn't her THING." (don't think her size fools us, she is totally a teenager)When this was her answer to why she had a problem with a sister trying to hug her to show her love, I knew she was trying to deny FAMILY love. NOT GOOD.So I sat everyone down and had them write "What does family mean to me?" Not surprising were her answers-- People to have fun with, to play with, to do things with. Such a common theme-- NO FEELINGS involved. Not one. ALL about superficial things.Not what THIS family is about. Not what a HEALTHY relationships are. So we went over everyone's answers and talked about what family REALLY means because any group of people can be thrown together and mean nothing, but that's not us either. We are LOVE, commitment, respect, honor, devotion to God, we are HERS. And she is OURS. To say she "got it" today is true. She got it. She is loved. Even when she doesn't want it. Wants to reject it because it's easier than working on the hard parts, the hard feelings, the hard behaviors. We went over her behaviors and that ALL of us choose to behave one way or another every single day. And how she will be loved no matter if she chooses the bad behaviors or the good ones. It's NOT going to change. I can say as far as regrets on our part--- we have NONE. We would do everything the same, adopt each of these kids, take Paisley-- as her second family, work through attachment issues, tears, fears, sadness, joy, hard questions, anger, upset, adjustments, educational/health needs, for each and every one of them. They were no less wanted than any birth child of ours. NOT ONE BIT. Our only regret if you want to call it regret is not knowing about the boys, but then we weren't looking for a sibling set of 3 so I can't say we regret not knowing in that way because we would not have set out to adopt 3. God planned that whole story and He did it perfectly. I was able to ask Paisley here later-- did she have any regrets of her adoption? She said she wished she did not have any health problem but she DID NOT regret being adopted. Huge, for her, this was huge. I was amazed to hear her say that considering her past. And she does not want to go back to live in China.Isn't it funny how WE think they must feel and when asked how they REALLY do feel?And see how God has His way of showing us things will be okay? All I can say is they are treasures. Many differences of adopting very young children vs older-- issues at times, but also many times cool things that you don't have with adopting young. It's a different road but not one we have any regrets of. Not-at-all. It's been a huge blessing to have each one of these children join our family. We don't tell you to go in blindly, NO WAY!! Get prepared, get educated. Be prepared to be stretched, lower your expectations, ask for help, struggle with communication, education and food issues.I don't know how to explain things better than this-- when talking to the kids today they got to asking when could they date, get married, have kids, etc? And they were talking about how expensive it is to have children, to raise them. And Paisley said "How many children did we have before we adopted?" and I told her 6.

Then she looked at me and said "And you adopt 6 more children after paying to raise all those children?" And I said "Yes, we did. Because we WANTED you. We were happy to adopt you." And she looked at me and said "WOW."That's right, daughter o' mine-- I feel the same way--- "WOW" ----are you, your brothers and your sisters, special, loved, wanted, fun, chosen, blessings sent straight from God and I get to be your mom. WOW.

7 comments:

This is a super-duper post! I shared it with Matt and we will be having this family talk soon. Ashlyn doesnt like it when Matt or our 2 boys touch her.... Not even joking around. She flinches. At first we thought that maybe she had been mistreated, but we know now that this is not the case. She just doesn't like to show affection to boys (even family). She says "that's not good". We believe its just a way of keeping them at arms length. She too has a BFF that the world revolves around.... I never thought about sharing with her the difference in family and friends. Don't get me wrong, she's attached beautifully, but I think she is withholding love from the males in our home and its not healthy for any of them... Her included.

About Me

I am the wife of Ron, mom of many - we have 4 grown sons, 1 grown daughter. Presently at home 1 homegrown son, 2 sons from China, and 4 daughters from China. We also have been foster parents including teens, special needs siblings and a terminally ill baby who passed away with us. Our adoption journey began with Kat- she came home October 2006 from QinZhou at age 3 and Chloe as a teen, home March 2009 from Henan. Chloe came with a surprise, BROTHERS- we went back for them May 2010. Chloe and Chance are twins. Chase is older brother. Then God brought us Paisley,aged 14 in May 2012--from a disrupted adoption after being adopted from China and then we brought home our last treasure, Phoebe, age 8 in Jan 2013 also from China. Our first adopted children (Kat, Chloe, Chance & Chase) all had the surname "MIN"; Thus the Just a MINute Mom title:) Plus they all say that to me:)
A house full of children, love and never, ever last, our faith in God to get us through each day and give Him full glory in the blessings He has given us with all our precious children.

Meeting Kat

Meeting Chloe

Meeting Chase and Chance

Meeting Paisley

Meeting Phoebe

Favorite picture of Kitty Kat

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